DayGlo's rebrand positions company for the future

DayGlo Color Corp.'s products are hard not to notice.

And it wants to help its customers' products stand out, too.

DayGlo in Cleveland makes fluorescent pigments and resins — work it started in 1946. In recent years, the company has been working to transform itself, investing in updates and creating a cohesive brand, as reported in Crain's Cleveland Business.

DayGlo currently operates in four main markets: coatings, graphic arts, cosmetics and plastics. That's fairly comprehensive when it comes to a company based on color.

But where vice president of global sales and marketing Will Wooten said the company sees a chance to grow is by thinking of fluorescent color in a different way. Instead of using it in its "purest form," the company can use it to instead highlight more conventional color, Wooten said.

Fluorescent color "emits more light than it absorbs," Wooten said. Mixing fluorescent color with conventional would help a color "pop" more, he said. He sees opportunity in helping small companies in spaces like apparel or cosmetics stand out on the shelf.

Ultimately, the company and its products were already strong, Wooten said, but recent changes have been about taking DayGlo to its foundation and "systemically rebuilding it."

DayGlo has about 200 employees globally; it does not share annual revenue. Cathie McKinley was brought on as president in 2019 to help lead some of these changes.

A news release noted that DayGlo has expanded manufacturing capacity, grown its workforce by 7% and offered more training and development opportunities. It's also introduced new product lines that offer more sustainable products. Overall, the comprehensive changes have included everything from updates in manufacturing and procurement to research and development to a recent rebranding.

"The transformation at DayGlo began by looking at our customers, their markets and how we can support their businesses," McKinley said in the release. "Ultimately, we strive to be a company that's easy to work with, making us an ideal partner for future collaborations. This rebranding, much like our pigments, is dynamic and captures how our color is a catalyst to inspire and create new possibilities for ourselves and our customers."

DayGlo, which is part of the RPM International Inc. family of companies, has four brands in its portfolio: DayGlo, Radiant, Sterling and Swada.

Until recently, each of those brands, which Wooten said had come under the DayGlo umbrella through acquisitions, had its own identity. The rebranding visually brings those four together.

The company's new logo is a color burst, representing the flash of light and color that happens when photons are activated, creating fluorescence.

"And it's about the science behind the color," said Alissa Kolarik, global marketing manager.

That rebranding conversation began near the end of 2020, Kolarik said, as the company looked to redo its marketing literature. But it quickly became apparent that the company's brands needed a more "cohesive" look, Wooten said. The brands' products are similar in quality and position in the market. The company saw an opportunity to reposition DayGlo as what Wooten called the "master brand," and use the others as sub-brands going forward.

The new branding was launched in March.

But the changes go beyond putting a new package on an existing company. The rebranding offered opportunity to become more intentional and transparent in communicating regular updates with DayGlo's team. The company also refreshed its internal "vision, mission and values," Kolarik said.

And the rebranding has given the company a chance to bring its international operations onto the same page. DayGlo's U.S. and European commercial teams previously had been operating fairly independently, Wooten said; now the two teams are manufacturing product for one another and otherwise jointly working on opportunities.